Tuesday, May 16, 2017

San Francisco is Considering Legislation that Would Ban Sidewalk Delivery Robots

States across the country are passing laws to permit the use of autonomous delivery robots statewide. But in San Francisco, a city globally renowned for its tech savvy residents, local politicians are now considering legislation that would ban the use of the nascent technology citywide, reports ReCode.

San Francisco supervisor Norman Yee proposed the new legislation today, following efforts his office made earlier this year to look into regulations that would govern the use of autonomous delivery robots. Yee worries that the robots aren’t safe, saying that seniors, people with disabilities and children won’t be able move out of the way quickly enough as these machines roll down city sidewalks at walking speed (around four miles per hour).

Yee says his office has talked with various robot delivery companies, including Dispatch, Marble and Starship, but that his discussions with them weren’t convincing.

“Our streets and our sidewalks are made for people, not robots,” said Supervisor Yee in a statist comment during an interview with Recode. “This is consistent with how we operate in the city, where we don’t allow bikes or skateboards on sidewalks,” Yee said he is also concerned about the delivery robots taking away jobs.

4 comments:

Yee is smart, or I should say his masters are. Autonomous robots are potentially very powerful. Like Bill Gates's call to tax them, this is a similar effort to regulate this tech so that it can be kept in the hands of the few who will know how yo exploit it to its full potential.